Turntable.fm gets a new look, makes it easier to land a DJ spot

Hot social music startup Turntable.fm has updated its main page with a much-needed redesign that will make finding a spot to share your tunes easier than ever.

The new homepage is much slicker than Turntable.fm’s previous entry, which was fairly bare bones. Now, in addition to finding popular rooms, you can easily find rooms that need DJs and mark and access your favorite rooms. The redesigned homepage also lets you easily see if any of your friends are online on Turntable.fm.

While the homepage appears to be the only part of the service to get a new coat of paint, it was by far the page most in need of an update. Now new users to the service will be less confused about where to go and how to find a DJ spot. I suspect its music rooms will be the company’s next major design upgrade.

At this point, after releasing an iPhone app and securing funding, Turntable.fm needs to focus on perfecting its overall experience. The service lets you share music by DJing to groups of up to 200 listeners, or you can just sit back and enjoy the tunes as other users DJ. But the game mechanics of the service could use some work.

DJs earn points every time someone rates their song choice as “Awesome,” and they can then use those points to buy new avatars, which end up serving as status symbols. But typically it’s very difficult to land a DJ spot in more popular rooms. And it’s very easy for power users to stay in a DJ spot all day, racking up points in the process, without actually paying attention to the room. At some point, Turntable.fm needs to make it easier for new users to become DJs and earn points, otherwise it will end up being ruled by a subsection of power users.